Jo-Wilfried Tsonga isn’t the best at speaking the English but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a good quote. Earlier today the Frenchman was asked what he thought about the Top 4 in men’s tennis and why they continue to dominate. A simple question that produced a simple, succinct response.

“In tennis, you know, you cannot lie,” said Tsonga. “You cannot lie. If they are No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, it’s because they deserve it and because they are the best players at the moment. That’s it.”

The follow-up to that was why the women can’t do the same. And this when Tsonga truly shines.

“You know, the girls, they are more unstable emotionally than us,” he said. “I’m sure everybody will say it’s true, even the girls. No? No, you don’t think? But, I mean, it’s just about hormones and all this stuff. We don’t have all these bad things, so we are physically in a good shape every time, and you are not. That’s it.”

And for Tsonga, that is truly it! The former Australian Open finalist lost Wednesday night in the Melbourne finals in five sets to Roger Federer.

Almost every point is either the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. It is definitely more emotional than the men’s game, but I don’t think it was always this bad. Chris Evert wasn’t a drama queen.

” We don’t have all these bad things, so we are physically in a good shape every time, and you are not. That’s it.”” LOL, If Andy or Roger said this then you know they would be in great, great trouble with the press.

@ skeezer. “I have noticed you are spending a lot of your time off the court blogging. Shouldn’t you be working out, rehabbing or something”? Ahh, the joys of multi-tasking! You should try it some time! Lol

Most of the positive responses here from men …can anybody explain Safin, Roddick, Roger, Djokovic, Marcello Rios, Nalbandian, Jerzy, Baggy, etc with their emotional roller coasters when they were being upset? Delpo upset Roger at USO09 & Roger went ham on the umpire, cursing him out & was fined …have u also forgotten Djokovi’c antics at the Wimby & FO 2012? *SIGH* …too much sexism here, just too much!

I agree with tsonga totally
Lack of fitness is the reason why this don’t happen in women tennis plus the emotional instability.
I mean everyone has the right to speak about the things they feel like.
Tsonga is a really good guy and i love him as a player and as a human being.
I don’t think tsonga is sexist at all .

I think Tsonga would have done better not to fall for that report’s bait. And also, it was an idiotic question. The women’s semis were made up of the #1, #2, and #6 players. The #3 player made the quarters despite injury, and in large part due to injury lost her match to an exciting new prospect. The #4 player made the quarters and lost to the #6 player, who is a former grand slam champion and a finalist of this event two years ago – not exactly an upset. They got to the later stages despite women’s tennis being best of 3 – meaning that an opponent on a hot run has a shorter time frame to pull off an upset than a male player. So where are all these upsets that the reporter was asking about?

I think that while women are more prone to express their emotions, I also think that a lifetime of being a woman would condition her to being able to handle the ups and downs in a way that wouldn’t unduly hinder her performance.

I think where he didn’t delve, and where the real issue is with current players on the WTA is not emotional, but tactical. Take a look at Maria Sharapova’s dismal performance against Li Na – she played the EXACT same way she did when she was racking up one victory after another and looking like she would roll through the field.

But she came up against a player who had the movement and her own sufficient firepower to resists her plan A, so what did she do? More of the same. And what was the result? A thorough drubbing.

The problem is technical – when you can only do one thing and that one thing is thwarted, then where once you appeared invincible, you suddenly appear very vulnerable. If she had a plan B, she might have had a chance to disrupt Li’s momentum, but she didn’t, and that was all she wrote.

Sharapova is merely a higher performing version of every other player on tour at the moment, with the exception of a few players out there who lack the depth of skill to make use of the breadth of skill they have.

Short story long – what happens to someone who no matter what they do, they keep losing points the same way over and over again? Emotionally they lose it. At this point the women lag behind the men in breadth of skills, and they wind up in the same situation as Sharapova did against Li Na than the men…but to be fair to the women, the men’s game is becoming increasingly homogenous as well, and I am quite certain that we’ll start wondering why modern male players are so emotionally unstable as compared to males players of the past.